


everything changes but nothing is better (OLD)

by atramento



Category: Terraria
Genre: Arguing, Dead Guide, Friendship, Gen, Mental Anguish, One-Sided Attraction, Saving the World, Sick Character, Vent Piece, complicated feelings, might rewrite, this doesn't focus on every npc
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-11
Updated: 2019-07-21
Packaged: 2020-06-26 12:45:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,626
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19768468
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/atramento/pseuds/atramento
Summary: It's been a rough week for everyone on Team Terraria.Edit: Written before Journey's End and no longer fitting to the established canon.





	1. DRYAD

Alalia groaned fitfully, wriggling around on the bed she had been lain onto hours prior. She had been like this not long before Terra had left to venture to the Underworld. Whatever their hero had intended to do, it had left the dryad in a feverish and pained state.

“You must... cleanse....” She rasped, her voice calling to no one in particular. “Nnnnngh....” Before she could continue, a cold hand laid itself on her forehead. It felt good on her burning skin, so she grunted when the hand was removed not long after. 

“She’s boiling, guys. I dunno what to do...” Molly clicked her tongue in thought. “Other than giving her a cold rag treatment and trying to scrounge up some remedy.” Potions hardly ever really worked. They were too processed for the Dryad’s natural palette and she threw them back up without fail.

It was not as though Terra had returned and they could ask her to fetch something to aid Alalia. She had not resurfaced at all... That in of itself was worrying, but Alalia was here and dying _now_. Something had to be done-- and they could not always wait for the hero to solve every problem. 

Alalia took hold of Molly’s hand as she pondered what to do. “The ancient spirits.... they.... they roam the land again...” Visions danced in her glassy eyes, all sorts of dangerous and aberrant creatures dragging their tainted footsteps all over her beloved home. 

“What?” Molly looked more than confused. She was not attuned to the land like Alalia. None of the crew were, in truth. Even Terra had to regularly seek Alalia’s council on the state of the land all around them. 

Not a one of them had rose from the nature of Terraria itself, the core of the wilderness birthing Alalia some five hundred years ago. She felt its joys, its sorrows. She danced with the petals in the wind, liked to feel the mud between her toes just as plains land gave way to the vast and untamed jungle. 

Well now she was only feeling Terraria’s death throes, everyone else was at least sure of that. With sweat beading down Alalia’s bronze skin and her entire body shaking with the effort to simply remain cognizant, their friend looked terrible. 

What did that say about Terraria itself? 


	2. ARMS DEALER

There was a degree of irony in Molly’s words. A degree that Andre could not appreciate at the moment. Any other time he might have laughed darkly at ‘ _ You’re letting your temper become more volatile than Dolgrim’s explosives! _ ’-- but not tonight. Tonight was bad, possibly the worst yet. They had been stuck inside their labyrinthe home for days... possibly weeks if Andre had any guess. Sometimes day and night warped together really fast and had no purpose. With Alalia down and out, they might as well be all blind to more than the outside world anyways. 

“My temper?! Terra’s out there in gods know where-- our supposed Guide is suddenly and mysteriously deceased, and now Alalia’s layin’ out like a wilting flower and you’re worried about my temper!?” Andre’s voice boomed over the pattering rain, over the thunder sending streaks of light crashing at the ground. 

“I’m just saying, Andre my dear.... that you’re working yourself up over something that we can hardly do anything about.” Molly’s voice was even but thin with exhaustion. “Terra told us she was going some place none could follow her. Even Luke told us we’d only hinder her progress.” 

Andre’s expression softened considerably from his angry snarl prior, but his voice did not. “ _ Lucas _ liked to act all pompous. Of course he’d make it sound like none of us could handle what Terra does. I’ve got guns, you can heal... hell, everyone here can fight! We’re not helpless like he always thought--” 

“Andre, you’re missing my point.” Molly leaned on him, her face nuzzling into his chest. She always leaned on him for comfort when she was distraught; even when Andre himself was the originator of such distress. 

“It’s not simply about Luke. It’s about us staying here so that whenever Terra does return, she’ll have the comfort of friends and home to return to. Not an empty home with the--” Molly swallowed.

“--Not an empty  _ husk  _ with only the dead lying within. We can’t just leave Luke’s body here and we certainly can’t leave Alalia to perish too.” Her voice was quiet, as she looked up at him with begging hazel eyes and pouting lips. 

“...I....” Andre’s frustration seemed to melt the longer he stared down at Molly. “....I guess you’re right. I’m sorry Molly love.” He picked her up for a gentle kiss of apology. “I just know we’re not at all helpless...” Some of his arguments clung to him, to his overcoat.

“I know that too... but we need to stay here and be strong... for Terra... for Alalia...” Even though Molly sometimes wondered herself what it would be like travelling Terraria’s open plains, she knew this was the best course of action. 

Andre sighed. As much as he had detested Luke and his play-it-safe attitude, he loved Molly far more. “I’ll go see if I can find some of those mushrooms Terra liked to pluck. Maybe Alalia can eat one of them?” He offered. 

Molly smiled softly, yawning a bit. “Thank you. Don’t stray too far, remember--” 

“Yeah.” Andre was already pulling a gun out and loading it for protection from... from whatever was out there. “And while I’m gettin’ those shrooms... you need to get some rest. We can figure out how to feed Alalia them after you get a good few hours or so.” 

“Aye aye captain...” She giggled, giving him one last kiss. Truth be told, Andre was more than anxious at stepping foot outside the safety of their base. But he couldn’t sit around and do nothing on the orders of a dead man.

Terra needed not just their comfort but their help too. She was out there. Was she alive? Was she dead? He hoped he could find out before things got any worse. 


	3. ANGLER

Tears tasted like salty water but nothing quite like ocean water. Sammy had drunk of the ocean once when he had run out of water in his little bottle. It was salty, too salty-- and it made him dizzy and tired afterwards. So he decided he wouldn’t drink sea water again. 

But he couldn’t stop his own tears. 

He had been the first one to find out something was wrong with Luke-- he had originally wanted to leave a dead fish under the guide’s pillow or bed or something and let it fill the room with fishy stench. But as he crept in, Luke was lying on his bed and paled beyond belief. 

“....You... should...” The man’s voice creaked and sounded ancient. Not at all the smooth, narrative tone Luke normally had. “....focus on....” A racking cough, then Luke fell silent. His chest was rising and falling erratically, painfully. 

“Hey! What’s wrong with you?!” Sammy ran up, the fish dropped and forgotten at the threshold. "Hey! Lukey! I'm talkin' to you!" 

If Luke heard him, he said nothing-- merely continued to rasp air in and out through his mouth. The young boy finally took a good look up at the guide and immediately regretted it. He looked burnt. Almost swollen in parts of his body, including his face, as he lie dying on the bed. Luke's eyes were no longer entirely visible but were leaking liquid nonetheless. At this ghastly sight Sammy gasped and stepped back. How horrifying! 

Worse yet, Luke responded by tilting his marred head towards Sammy. "She brings a... new era of the land... a rebirth... One I will not be a part of. I bid you all..." His eyes seemed to finally close forever, and the horrible thing transpiring was no more. At least, Sammy hoped so. He was trembling now. He had never seen Luke this terrible, this scary...

"FAREWELL!" Luke suddenly cried out eyes flinging wide open as if the man were holding fast to one last shred of life within him. Unfortunately this scared Sammy even worse and he cried out in alarm before sitting onto the cold hardwood floor and sobbing. He didn't understand what had transpired, but the sight of the aftermath had traumatized him enough.

And nearly everyone save Alalia, who was already dipping into an awful fever herself, burst into the two doorways at the sound of Sammy screaming and crying. Sure, the kid was a total out and out brat-- but no one deserved to be scared or miserable in their own home. Molly, as the de-facto leader in Terra's absence, was the first to wrap around Sammy protectively. He did not even protest, the atrocious sight of Luke's marred and twisted expression burned into his eyes even through his tears. 

"What happened, Sammy?" Molly cooed, as Dolgrim stepped over the lifeless fish towards Luke's body. His eyes were still open, but his body was unmoving. "You can tell us." She started stroking the child's hair, trying to any sort of method to calm him down. 

"Th' lad's dead." Dolgrim suddenly remarked, a bit unhelpfully. "Looks like 'e got a hold of mah explosives! All red 'n th' face an' wha' not." Molly frowned and immediately Andre stepped beside Dolgrim, ready to enforce his lover's displeasure. 

"It's rather plain that he is, Dolgrim. Mind holdin' off on the commentary until Sammy's calmed down?" The arms dealer made a face at his eternal rival, though it was somewhat subdued by the crying child and corpse lain beside them. 

"Aye." Dolgrim nodded rather stoically. "I jus'... I guess I expected him ta get righ' back up an' _guide_ us." Most of the others on the team murmured in agreement-- Luke, for all his mediocrity in virtually almost everything, had an uncanny ability to simply survive and pass on whatever crackerjack knowledge he seemed to possess. Not this time. 

The group decided the only thing to do would be to look at Luke's corpse in any more detail once Sammy had been lulled to sleep. Molly had hoped Sammy would not have nightmares, but oh, Sammy had found something much worse. 

He saw the outline of Luke's face through his sobbing fits, in his dreams, in his nightmares, in every waking moment where his eyes were shrouded in even just the faintest darkness. 


	4. HERO

Deep within the bowels of the land, a girl cried. 

Who was she? Nobody now but the mere instrument of the land that had eschewed revealing her origins even to herself. She derived no meaning from this place in particular-- with its stone bathed in a sickly pale red and the lava dribbling in between that same stone. Screams and growls echoed around where she lay but she ignored them. They meant nothing either. 

Her name, given to her by familiar strangers.

Her gear, crafted by once smooth hands worked callous with each task required of her.

Her personality, initially bereft of any sort of indicators then molded by the same experiences that she gained new responsibilities from.

Her _power--_ wrested from creatures that nearly any other reasonable mortal would have trembled at and fallen on their knees to. All of that paled in comparison to her first cognizant moments though. 

_"They say there is a person who will tell you how to survive in this land... oh wait. That's me."_ That was the first words she heard, upon becoming aware of her surroundings. It seemed so silly now to think that she had merely gaped at him with a sharp and inquiring 'what?' directed at the relative location of his voice. He shortly emerged from the mists with a kindly if not confident smile, extending his hand to hers. 

He hadn't asked her name, as if he knew. This oddly hadn't angered her and yet she still took his hand reluctantly. What else did he know? As if on cue, the man chuckled as though there was an old joke between the two of them. _"I am here to give you advice on what to do next. It is recommended that you talk with me anytime you get stuck. My name is Lucas... but you can call me Luke okay?"_

....Recommended by whom though?

Regardless of all the questions surrounding his existence, Luke swiftly became a reliable fixture in her life. He was always offering advice and his assistance whenever possible. He had helped her build the first ramshackle construct that was eventually to be her base of operations-- he had kindly referred to it as their new steading-- and had even helped her with tedious chores such as spending the hours required to wrap and grease torches. Though he claimed he could not combat monsters he more than accommodated by giving her the tools to do so. 

In an environment where everyone seemed to consistently treat her as some godsend, Luke was the outlier. He clearly revered her as well, of that there was no doubt-- but seemed content to only defer to her with regards to others. In just each other's presence, she was... herself. Sometimes she was even Terra. And he was Luke. But also more than Luke to her. He was her deepest, truest reason to fight, her inspiration--

Her guide.... and now he was gone. She didn't have to return to the base to know this, because it had been her to inflict the lethal blow. Funny how an immovable and reliable man like Luke was easily taken down by scraps of felt assembled into his likeness. She sniffled, remembering how she herself had stitched each part together and had smiled at the finished product as the felt Luke stared back with mismatched button eyes. 

It was supposed to be a gift in the likeness of the one constant in her life... but Terra found herself unable to relent it. She instead kept the felt Luke close to her, kept it with her on trips out into the dangerous and lone wilds of Terraria. No one had to know about the tiny toy guide tucked in her armor-- not even Luke. Especially Luke. Maybe it was unhealthy to do this, Terra mused. She found she was concerned and apathetic in equal measure to the unbridled affection she seemed to have for him. 

She hardly knew him, in some regard. He was the everyman, the 'normal' fellow around the base. Oddly, nearly everyone else seemed to have a neutral or even adverse mindset of him. What about her guide repulsed them when she was so clearly smitten with him?

Maybe it was _because_ he was so.... blase and mundane to everything. She had supposed it could seem inappropriate or unnatural for anyone to _recommend_ that someone should plum the depths of places twisted and infested with monsters. Someone had to do it though... right? 

There was one time Luke seemed to let his normalcy slide a bit and reveal the mystical nature of his role there. Terra shuddered even now to think of it. _"When you are ready to challenge the keeper of the underworld, you will have to make a living sacrifice."_ He intoned plainly, as his eyes immediately rested on the spot of Terra's armor where the felt doll was tucked away. 

She remembered seeing (Or dreaming? She was never sure.) his shadow later that night clutching the doll, whispering words into it. How she regretted not reaching out from her bed, not crying for him to stop-- anything... Anything to stop the eventual transpiring of the beginning of the end for them. 

Deep within the bowels of _hell_ , a girl weeped for love lost and love never to be.


End file.
